Man 'kept paddling' from shark

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A NSW man has told of his escape from a four-metre great
white shark off the state's central coast.

Chris Parker, a father of two of Bateau Bay, said yesterday he
was 60 metres from shore and paddling for a wave when the shark,
twice the length of his board, hit him from behind and catapulted
him into the water.

"I saw its head, its dorsal fin and its tail," he said. "I
managed to get back on my board and then saw how far I was from
shore, and I thought I was gone, for sure.

"But I just kept paddling. I kept waiting for it to hit me, but
I didn't look back. It was the biggest fish I'd ever seen."

Mr Parker's encounter was at least the fifth between a man and a
shark in Australian waters this summer.

Last Saturday, Geoffrey Brazier, 26, was killed by a shark while
snorkelling in Western Australia. On January 14 a three-metre shark
frightened a children's regatta on the Mornington Peninsula.

On December 16, Nick Peterson, 18, was killed by two great
whites while riding a surfboard being towed behind a boat off West
Beach in Adelaide.